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{{Main article|Eichmann in Jerusalem}}
In her reporting of the 1961 {{lang|de|[[Adolf Eichmann]]}} trial for ''[[The New Yorker]]'', which evolved into ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil]]'' (1963), she coined the phrase "the [[banality of evil]]" to describe the phenomenon of {{lang|de|Eichmann}}. She raised the question of whether [[evil]] is radical or simply a function of thoughtlessness, a tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without a critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions and inaction. She was sharply critical of the way the trial was conducted in [[Israel]]. She also was critical of the way that some Jewish leaders, notably {{lang|pl|[[Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski|M.C. Rumkowski]]}}, acted during [[the Holocaust]]. This caused a considerable controversy and even animosity toward Arendt in the Jewish community. Her friend {{lang|he-Latn|[[Gershom Scholem]]}}, a major scholar of [[Kabbalah|Jewish mysticism]], broke off relations with her. Arendt was criticized by many Jewish public figures, who charged her with coldness and lack of sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust
{{quote|The controversy began by calling attention to the conduct of the Jewish people during the years of the Final Solution, thus following up the question, first raised by the Israeli prosecutor, of whether the Jews could or should have defended themselves. I had dismissed that question as silly and cruel, since it testified to a fatal ignorance of the conditions at the time. It has now been discussed to exhaustion, and the most amazing conclusions have been drawn. The well-known historico-sociological construct of "ghetto mentality" … has been repeatedly dragged in to explain behavior which was not at all confined to the Jewish people and which therefore cannot be explained by specifically Jewish factors. … This was the unexpected conclusion certain reviewers chose to draw from the "image" of a book, created by certain interest groups, in which I allegedly had claimed that the Jews had murdered themselves.<ref>Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Penguin, 1963, pp.283-284.</ref>}}
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